Wow, I thought the failed Delta II would have been under LSP, or was that USAF and LSP didn't start until later?

Feel sorry for Antonio.

The Delta II failure was a USAF GPS launch. The partial failure was a commercial launch. Neither carried a NASA payload.

The last launch failure of a major unmanned orbital NASA mission was QuickTOMS, also on a Taurus, in 2001. This was also the last failure out of Vandenberg.

The last failure of an orbital launch carrying NASA payloads of any type was the third Falcon 1 in August 2008, carrying the NanoSail and PreSat CubeSats for NASA, and the ALV-X1 sounding rocket is the most recent NASA launch failure of any description.

Fairing separates by sequence of electrical pulses that drives ordnance. Two primary and two redundant pulses separate the fairing rails (vertical part.) 80 milliseconds later, base joint is separated by 2/2 pulses as well. Confirmed that the sequence was sent, we had good power, and had healthy electronics box that sent the signal.

When fairing comes off, little wires that are looped back break. We did not get indications that those broke. Temps did not change after it should have separated. And fairing is pretty heavy, so jump in acceleration. We did not get that jump.

If they went to a launch as "low profile" as this, then they probably aren't your generic reporter being sent to cover a "that NASA stuff."

Note the AP didn't have the launch failure announcement for well over an hour... We'd run the story once before I noticed and told the producer that it was a failure, but she sent me another update from AP talking about the good launch.

So to recap. Fairing failed to sep. Vehicle would have gained some delta V with a nominal loss of the fairing. Thus could not get into orbit. Splashed down near Antarctica. Wouldn't of mattered if it could have got into orbit due to lack of power with the fairing surrounding it.